Imaginary Landscape

18th century

Sakaki Hyakusen probably developed his interest in Chinese painting because of his family's business of selling Chinese medicinal herbs. As one of the pioneers of Nanga painting, a style inspired by the great tradition of scholar painting in China, Hyakusen experimented widely. Here, curious scale discrepancies and spatial ambiguities suggest Hyakusen's artistic experimentation. The mixing of various thematic motifs, too, betrays his unfamiliarity with stock Chinese themes. Details such as the descending geese and the scholars who look toward a distant temple from a rocky ledge usually pertain to the famous Chinese theme of the "Eight Views of the Hsiao and Hsiang Rivers." However, the cranes, waterfalls, and the fantastic quality of the landscape itself are elements common to paintings of the "Isles of the Immortals." As a Japanese, unfettered by Chinese convention, Hyakusen was free to playfully build his landscape from such structurally and thematically divergent parts.

meticulously rendered, panoramic view of an imaginary landscape with myriads of hills, mountains and waterside villas surrounded by a large body of water; includes red sun, flying cranes, flock of geese, scholar crossing a bridge, a small pleasure boat an